Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1264 page)

Nobby paddled back, more scared than when he had gone to the World’s End, and went to see the High Priest about it. The High Priest explained like a book. He said that Nobby finding a log which didn’t turn over with him; and his getting to the World’s End and back on it, without being burned up by the Sun;
and
this last miracle of the Wind, coming on top of the other two, proved that Nobby was beloved by all the Gods of Tide, Sun, and Wind,
and
the Log that carried him.

“ I hope that’s the case,” said Nobby, who was modest by nature. “But the next time I go foreign I shall hoist that skin on a stick and have both hands free for miracles in case the Gods spring any more.” Accordingly, he stuck a stick in a hole that he had burned out in the log a little forward of midships, and on the principle that you can’t have too much of a good thing, he hung up another three-cornered sail in front of the first, and fastened one of its corners down to the nose of the boat. But as the free corner flapped about too much, Nobby got Mrs. Nobby to sew a thong to it, and led the thong aft to the well, so that he could stop the flapping by pulling on it. Then, the miracles began in earnest! For months and months Nobby never knew when he hoisted those two triangular skins — the first fore-and-aft sails in the world — what the log and the Gods of the Wind, and the paddle, and the strings of the sails, were going to do next. And when the God of the Tide took a hand in the circus, Nobby’s hair stood on end. One day, everything would go beautifully. The God of the Tide on his leebow would make the old log look up almost within six finger-points of the wind; and Nobby would skim along at the rate of knots, thinking he’d found out all about it at last. Next day, with a lee-going tide, he would find the canoe bumping broadside on to every shoal he’d ever guessed at, and dozens that he hadn’t. Sails, wind, tide, steering — everything — was an incomprehensible wonder, which generally ended in an upset. He had nothing but his own experience to guide him,
plus
the certainty of something happening every time that he took liberties with the Gods. And he didn’t know when he
had
taken a liberty till he was tipped out of the boat. But he stuck to his job, and in time he trained his eldest son to help him, till, after years and years of every sort of accident and weather, and hard work and hard thinking and wet lying, he mastered the second of the Two Greatest Mysteries in the world-he understood the Way of a Ship on the Sea.

One fine day in autumn, with a north-west wind and good visibility, the High Priest came to him and said: “I wish you’d slip up the hill with me for a minute, and give me your opinion of the view”. Nobby came at once, and when they got to Pigtail Corner, the Priest pointed to a square sail off the tail of the Mouse Shoal, some few miles away, and said: “What do you make of
that
?”

Nobby looked hard; then he said: “That’s not a
ship
. It’s one of those dam’ barbarians from Harwich. They scull about there in any sort of coffin.” The Priest said: “What are you going to do about it? “

“I’m going to have a look at him presently,” said Nobby, screwing up his eyes. “Meantime, it’s slack water and he’s crossing the Knob Channel before the wind, because he don’t know how to navigate otherwise. But in a little while, the God of the Ebb will carry him out towards the End of the World. Then he’ll panic, same as I did; and he’ll dig out pretty hard to close the land. But it’s
my
impression the God of the Ebb Tide will defeat him, and he’ll spend most of the night between the land and the World’s End, paddling like a duck with the cramps. If he’s lucky, he’ll be brought back again by the God of the Flood Tide. But
then
, if this Nor’West wind holds, he’ll find the God of the Wind fighting the God of the Flood every foot of the way; and he’ll be put to it to keep his end up in that lop. If he isn’t drowned, he’ll be rather fatigued. I ought to pick him up when the Sun gets out of bed to-morrow, somewhere between Margate Sands and the End of the World — probably off the South Shingles.”

“That’s very interesting,” said the High Priest, “but what does it mean exactly?”

“Well,” said Nobby, “it means exactly that I’ve got to beat to windward most of this night on a lee-going tide, which, with all respect to the Gods, is the most sanguinary awkward combination
I
know; and if I don’t hit mud more than a dozen times between, here and the South Shingles, I shall think myself lucky. But don’t let that spoil your sleep, old man.”

“No, I won’t,” said the High Priest. “Go and keep your ceaseless vigil in your lean grey hull and — and — I’ll pray for you.”

Nobby didn’t even say “ Thank you”. He went down to the beach where his eldest son was waiting with the boat.

“Bite loose the behind-end string,” says Nobby, signifying in his language: “ Let go the stern-fast”.

“Very good, Sir,” says the boy, gnashing his teeth. “Where are we going, Dad?”

“The Gods only know,” says Nobby. “But I know that if we aren’t off the South Shingles when the Sun gets out of bed to-morrow,
your
leave’s stopped, for one.”

By these arbitrary and unfeeling means was discipline and initiative originally inculcated in the Senior Service.

That cruise was all that Nobby had told the High Priest it would be, and a good deal more. As long as the light lasted he moved along fairly well, but after dark he was doing business alone with the Gods of the Wind and the Tide, and the sails and the strings (which naturally fouled), in an unbuoyed, unlighted estuary, chockful of shoals and flats and rips and knocks and wedges and currents and overfalls; also densely populated with floating trees and logs carrying no lights, adrift at every angle.
Can
you imagine anything like it, gentlemen, in all your experience? When they had collided with their fifth floating oak, Nobby calls forward to ask his son whether he was enjoying pleasant dreams, or what else.

“But I can’t
see
‘em,” says the child, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

“See ‘em!” says Nobby. “Who the Hell expects you to see ‘em on a night like this? You’ve got to
smell
‘em, my son.”

Thus early, gentlemen, was the prehistoric and perishing Watch Officer inducted into the mysteries of his unpleasing trade.

So Nobby threshed along as he best could, praying to every God he knew not to set him too far to leeward when the Sun rose. And the object he was sweating his soul and carcass out for, was the one object that all his legitimate and illegitimate descendants on the seas have sweated for ever since — to get to windward of the enemy. When day broke, he found himself a couple of miles or so south-east of the South Shingles, with Margate Sands somewhere on his right, and the End of the World ahead of him glowing redder and redder as the Sun rose. He couldn’t have explained how he got there, any more than he could have explained what made him lie just there, waiting for his Harwich friend, and thumping and hammering in the bubble of the wind against the tide.

In due course, the flood brought up a big ship — fifteen foot by eight if she was an inch — made of wickerwork covered with skins. She sat low with two men trying to paddle her, and two more trying to bale. Nobby came down wind, and rammed her at the unheard-of velocity of four point two knots. She heeled over, and while the boy, who was a destructive young devil, stabbed at her skin-plating with his spear, Nobby drove his porpoise-harpoon, with line attached, in among the crew, and through her bilge. Next minute, his canoe was riding head to wind, moored by his harpoon-line to the rim of the basket flush with the water, just as the big skin square-sail floated out of her, neatly blanketing seventy-five per cent of her personnel. A minute later, the boy had hit one surviving head in the water, Nobby had cut his line, and — the first naval engagement in English history was finished, and the first English Commander was moaning over loss of stores expended in action. (Because Nobby knew he’d have to account for that harpoon and line at home.) Then he got the God of the Wind on his right side, hit land somewhere between Margate Sands and Westgate-on-Sea, and came along the shore under easy paddle to Garrison Point; the boy talking very hard and excited.

There not being any newspapers in those days, he told the High Priest exactly what he had done, and drew battle-charts in the mud with a stick, giving his courses, which were roughly North-East; then South-East; and Westerly homeward after the action.

“Well,” said the High Priest, “
I
don’t pretend to understand navigation, but N.E.S.E.W. means No Enemy Sails English Waters.
That’s
as plain as print. It looks to me, though, as if you’ve started a bigger game than you’ve any idea of. Do I understand that you followed your enemy to the End of the World and drowned him there?”

“Yes; but that wasn’t
my
fault,” said Nobby. “He went there first. He hadn’t any business in my water.”

“Quite so,” said the High Priest, “but that’s only the beginning of it.”

“Well”, said Nobby, “ what’s going to be the end of it? What’ll happen to
me
, for instance?”

“I’ll tell you,” said the High Priest, and he began to prophesy in the irritating way that civilians do. “You’ll have a hard wet life and your sons after you. When you aren’t being worried by the sea or your enemies, you’ll be worried by your own tribe, teaching you your own job.”

“
That’s
nothing new,” said Nobby. “Carry on!”

“You’ll win the world without anyone
caring
how you did it: you’ll keep the world without anyone
knowing
how you did it: and you’ll carry the world on your backs without anyone
seeing
how you did it. But neither you nor your sons will get anything out of that little job except Four Gifts — one for the Sea, one for the Wind, one for the Sun, and one for the Ship that carries you.”

“Well, I’m glad there will be some advantages connected with the Service. I haven’t discovered ‘em yet,” said Nobby.

“Yes,” said the Priest. “You and your sons after you will be long in the head, slow in the tongue, heavy in the hand,
and
— as you were yesterday at the World’s End — always a little bit to windward. That you can count on for ever and ever and ever.”

“That’ll come in handy for the boy,” said Nobby. “ He didn’t do so badly in our little affair yesterday. But what about this Stick-and-Basket pidgin you’re always hinting at?”

“There’s no end to what happens when the Stick marries the Basket,” said the High Priest. “There will only be another beginning and a fresh start. Your logs will grow as high as hills and as long as villages, and as wide as rivers. And when they are at their highest and longest and widest, they’ll all get up in the air and fly.”

“That’s a bad look-out for the boy,” said Nobby. “I’ve only brought him up to the sea-trade.”

“Live easy and die easy as far as that is concerned,” said the High Priest. “For, winning the world, and keeping the world, and carrying the world on their backs — on land, or on sea, or in the air — your sons will always have the Four Gifts. Long-headed and slow-spoken and heavy — damned heavy — in the hand, will they be; and always and always a little bit to windward of every enemy — that they may be a safeguard to all who pass on the seas on their lawful occasions.”

England and the English

I THINK
this is an occasion on which it behoves us all to walk rather circumspectly. If you will let me, I will try and tell you why. About sixteen hundred years ago, when Rome was mistress of the world and the Picts and the Scots lived on the other side of the Wall that ran from Newcastle to Carlisle, the story goes that Rome allowed all those peoples one night in the year in which they could say aloud exactly what they thought of Rome, without fear of the consequences. So then, on that one night of the year, they would creep out of the heather in droves and light their little wandering fires and criticise their Libyan Generals and their Roman Pontiffs and the Eastern camp followers, who looked down on them from the top of the great high unbreakable Roman Wall sixteen hundred years ago.

To-day, Imperial Rome is dead. The Wall is down and the Picts and the Scots are on this side of it, but thanks to our Royal Society of St. George, there still remains one night in the year when the English can creep out of their hiding-places and whisper to each other exactly what we think about ourselves. No, it is not quite safe to criticise our masters — our masters who tax us and educate us, and try us, and minister so abundantly to what they instruct us our wants ought to be. Since these masters of ours have not yet quite the old untroubled assurance of power and knowledge that made Rome so tolerant in the days when the Picts and the Scots lived on the other side of the Wall, we will confine ourselves to our own popular and widely recognised defects.

Some of our severest critics, who, of course, are of our own household, have said that there never was such a thing as the English Race — that it is at best the intolerably insolent outcome of ancient invasions and immigrations, freshened with more recent Continental gaol-deliveries. Far be it from me to traverse such statements. I give them on no less authority than that of the late Mr. Daniel Defoe, Liveryman of the City of London, author of
Robinson Crusoe
and of a pamphlet called
The True-born Englishman
. He deals very faithfully with the English. So faithfully that, in deference to the susceptibilities of some races, I will not give his version of the Englishman’s pedigree, but in his summing up of the true-born Englishman, Defoe says: